Page 31 of Stolen Rival (The Stolen #1)
PATRICK
Dylan’s—I mean my—private jet sits on the apron, sunshine reflecting off its gleaming white paintwork. I’ve always flown on commercial airlines when traveling long haul, but now my territory has expanded to the United States, having a jet at my disposal will be a useful asset.
A small gasp escapes Sorcha as she clocks the plush interior.
She hasn’t said a word to me this morning, and I can’t say I blame her considering how I took her virginity then discarded her like a used tissue.
I understood the play. She wanted to force my hand, to make me lose control and hand it to her, and I took the opportunity to wrestle it back—in the cruelest way possible.
I’m a bastard, and the worst part is I don’t know how to be anything else.
When you’re brought up in my world, one filled with brutality and violence, it eliminates any soft edges, any thoughts for another’s feelings.
Sorcha’s got an abundance of soft edges, and I can see the benefits of her family keeping her away from our world.
But her father’s actions changed everything, and she’s now married to the worst of our kind—me. If she doesn’t learn how to deal with it, she’ll spend her days with puffy eyes and a throat stuffed with regrets.
Whether she likes it or not, she’s stuck with me for the rest of her days.
She seems hesitant to sit, her wide eyes skimming the numerous seating choices.
Taking her by the elbow, I guide her toward the back of the plane where there are two seats facing one another, a table in between, and a three-seater couch.
A curtain is fastened to the wall, meaning this area can be screened off for privacy.
She not so subtly jerks her elbow out of my reach and chooses one of the chairs, then immediately delves into her handbag.
Seconds later, she’s got her nose in a book.
Andrew’s expression could sour milk, and I’m not under any illusions that his loyalties are not, and never will be, with me.
At some point, he’s going to take a misstep and when he does, I’ll be waiting.
It’s only out of respect to Dylan, and the need to tread carefully with the organization I’ve inherited that I haven’t killed him already.
Some underbosses can turn their allegiances to whomever is at the head of the family, but Andrew isn’t one of them.
He will bide his time and when he thinks my back is turned, he’ll strike.
The problem Andrew has is that he doesn’t know me.
I never turn my back on friends or enemies. I’m always watching. Always in control.
I take the chair opposite Sorcha and fasten my seat belt. Running my hand over my three-day-old beard, I settle my gaze on her. Either she reads at a snail’s pace, or she isn’t reading that book at all because I haven’t seen her turn a single page.
She’s got every right to be angry and hurt after what I did, but if I had my time again, I’d do the same thing.
I cannot let her usurp even a sliver of control.
She’s the give-an- inch-take-a-mile kind of woman, and given I’d have agreed to anything while my dick was inside her, she’s more dangerous than I gave her credit for.
Her curves covered by those scraps of lace are seared into my mind. I don’t even have to close my eyes to conjure them.
My type is women. All women. All shapes and sizes, colors and creeds.
But my preference has always been for experience, and despite Sorcha’s bravado, she’s an innocent, far from the worldly kind of women who usually warm my bed.
Before last night, I’d only slept with one other virgin, a girl in high school, and I was a virgin, too.
Both of us were keen to rid ourselves of the label.
The event was quick and unsatisfactory. After that, I sought out women who were more proficient at sex than I was until I learned how to make them scream.
Sorcha screamed. Fuck, did she. My ears are still ringing with the sound of her coming apart at the seams. But I could have been gentler. I should have been gentler. I’m not a teenager. I’m a thirty-five-year-old man who is capable of resisting a naive young woman’s attempt at seduction.
Or so I thought.
The truth is I lost my mind when she began playing with herself.
I should have sent her back to her room with a kind word and an explanation that this wasn’t the right time or place.
Except that would have been a lie. There was nothing wrong with the time or the place.
The only thing wrong was that she took control and shone a light on a flaw born out of loss. One I never allow anyone to see.
Except she did. And I hit back. Hard.
In order to regain my dominance, my superiority, my power, I’d crushed her spirit.
This solemn, quiet version of the fiery redhead I’d forced into marriage should have me metaphorically leaping for joy.
Life’s a hell of a lot easier when she isn’t running her mouth and defying me at every turn.
But it isn’t joy I’m feeling; it’s bewilderment.
There’s a hollowness in my chest that I’m not sure how to fill. I don’t like it.
“Fasten your belt,” I say as the plane begins to taxi to the runway.
Deliberately not looking at me, she sets her book down on the table, snaps her belt shut, then picks the book up again.
Holding back an irritated sigh, I gaze out of the window as the engines rev, and the plane picks up speed. As we lift off the ground, Sorcha drops her book into her lap and grips the arms of the chair. She did the same on the way out here, too, and just like then, I ignore her obvious discomfort.
I wasn’t always like this. Sure, I’d grown up knowing I’d have a part to play when I eventually took over the family business from my father, but I never used to be this cruel, especially to those who don’t deserve my wrath.
The night my parents died fundamentally changed something inside me.
The agony of knowing it was my phone call in the early hours of the morning that brought them out of the house and into the path of that drunk driver.
My pleading with them to come and pick me up because I’d lost control after a fight with my then-girlfriend, got shit-faced, and couldn’t drive home.
Fire burns through my chest. I make a fist and rub it, but the ache only worsens. I glance over at Sorcha again. She’s nibbling the inside of her cheek, and I could swear her bottom lip trembles.
Say something, you fucking twat. One sentence.
“Flying is the safest way to travel.” I almost groan aloud at using the often-trotted-out phrase for anyone who’s a nervous flyer.
For the first time since I cruelly discarded her last night with my cum dripping down her legs, she gives me her eyes. And swimming in the depths of her blue irises isn’t hate or loathing. It’s hurt and disappointment.
“Statistics mean nothing if you’re on the plane that’s hurtling to the ground at hundreds of kilometers an hour.”
A faint smile pulls at my lips. “I suppose not.”
She shifts her gaze to the upturned book in her lap, her fingers still clinging onto the leather-covered arms of her chair.
I wriggle uncomfortably in my seat. I have killed men while their wives and children looked on, their screams not giving me a single sleepless night. I have taken territory that did not belong to me through violence and bloodshed. Hell, I murdered Sorcha’s family and didn’t bat an eyelid.
But her reaction to my barbaric dismissal last night feels like a hunting knife embedded in my chest.
“About last night…”
Her eyelashes flicker, and with painful slowness, she tilts up her chin and meets my gaze.
“You don’t have to explain anything to me, Patrick.
I’m aware of my position in your life. A wife to gain access to your inheritance, a pussy to fuck, and a womb to carry your children.
My hopes and dreams and thoughts and feelings aren’t important.
They don’t even make the top ten of your daily concerns.
So, whatever you were about to say, don’t.
I’m not interested in hearing hollow words that mean nothing. ”
Five minutes into the flight and a twenty-year-old slip of a girl just handed my balls to me on a tarnished silver platter.
She releases her death grip on the chair and picks up her book as I comb through my mind, seeking words I’m not capable of uttering.
A tear slips down her cheek, and she sweeps it away.
This is different to the wild sobbing in the car on the way to Dylan’s, and it has an infinitely graver impact on me.
Forgetting I don’t have the empathy to comfort anyone, I unfasten my seat belt, ignoring the illuminated sign ordering me otherwise.
I get to my feet, unclip the curtain from the fuselage and pull it across the gap.
Andrew, the two bodyguards traveling with us, and the single flight attendant disappear from view.
I pluck the novel from her hands and set it on the table.
“What are you doing?”
Leaning down, I take both her hands in mine and tug her to standing. “I’m not an ebullient man, nor am I prone to caring what effect my words and actions mean to others. But how I treated you, and what I said to you last night was wrong. And I’m… I’m sorry.”
As she gapes at me, mouth wide open, I slide one hand around the back of her neck and wrap an arm around her waist. Tucking her head against my chest, I stroke her hair.
She collapses like an underproofed pile of dough. Sinking against me, her shoulders shake as she silently lets her tears fall. I say nothing as she expels the poison I dripped into her veins, and, as I hold my wife in my arms, the hollowness in my chest doesn’t feel quite so hollow.
Perhaps this is the catalyst for us to find a way forward. It doesn’t excuse what I did, but maybe, just maybe, this marriage might not be the worst thing that’s happened—to either of us.